


So if I survive, then I'll see you tomorrow

by spectralarchers



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Clint Barton Has PTSD, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectralarchers/pseuds/spectralarchers
Summary: Fill for the prompt of Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor with Natasha as the tattoo artist and Clint as the florist:Clint Barton is a veteran with hearing loss who has opened a flower shop opposite the street of an existing tattoo parlor, owned by former Olympic skater Natasha Romanoff. The issue with it is that although he likes Natasha, he can't stand needles. What will happen when he finally sets foot inside the tattoo parlor?
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 23
Kudos: 71
Collections: be_compromised AU Exchange 2020





	So if I survive, then I'll see you tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [why_didnt_i_get_any_soup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/why_didnt_i_get_any_soup/gifts).



> Unbeta'd and all mistakes are my own!

There aren’t that many things worse than standing under the rain in front of a store, unable to get inside. That’s what Clint keeps telling himself, as he sits on the concrete steps leading up to  _ Lily’s & Daisy’s _ , his very own store. The rain is drizzling down his face, and he can feel that the hoodie he’d picked in lieu of a rain jacket isn’t going to dry on its own once he gets out of this dreadful weather.

At least Lucky’s lying at his feet, seemingly unbothered by the rain, looking over at the other side of the street with ears perked somewhat up, alert to what is going on inside.

He should have been able to open up the store, the keys to the front door always hang on his key chain with the keys to his apartment and to his bicycle, but he had spent the night neither at his flat nor had come on his bike, so the keys were still in his jeans from yesterday. Which were in the wash, at Frank’s place.

He hadn’t realized it until he’d left.

He feels Lucky tug at his leash, and looks up - one of the girls in the Tattoo shop on the other side of the street has just accompanied a client outside. She’s the younger one, from what Clint has gathered off the whispers of his student employees, she’s an art student up at the University, and is interning at  _ Needles and Blades _ for the semester. As soon as the client leaves after they’ve finished their conversation, the young woman looks over at him, and Clint can see her smile from where he’s sitting.

She adjusts a strand of hair behind her ear, makes a beeline for him from across the street, jerks back as a yellow cab honks her out of the way, yelling obscenities through the window in the same breath, and finally arrives on the other side of the street. 

She towers over him, as he sits down, hunched over the stairs. Her lips move, and Clint can sort of make out that she said something she definitely thinks was funny by the look on her face, but Clint makes a face and points to his ears, then to the little plastic box he’s carrying in his hands, shielding it from the rain. 

“I had to take out my hearing aids,” he says, hoping he’s not speaking too loud, but he’s not sure how loud he’s supposed to speak, what with the rain and the wind and the traffic and everything.

She makes an oh face, before kneeling in front of him, so that they’re level and looks him in the eye, articulating what she’s saying now: “Do you(?) want to(?) come inside?”

Motioning as she speaks, pointing at him, then at her, then at the tattoo store, he gets the gist even if some of the words are lost on him. Lucky is behaving well, even though he’s very interested in her, he hasn’t moved from his spot yet. Because Clint hasn’t shown any interest in getting up just yet.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind,” he says finally, shifting his weight, which Lucky interprets correctly, jumping to his own four feet and going to investigate whether or not the girl with the long dark hair in a ponytail is a female or a male - the proper way to greet human beings. Clint immediately pulls him a little bit back with a “Sorry, he’s just like that all the time,” as Lucky ends up putting a very wet front left paw on the girl’s jeans, leaving a muddy mark there all the same.

She doesn’t seem to mind, mouthing a “It’s fine” to him, as she turns around to walk past the road again. Clint follows her lead, Lucky this time making sure that their jaywalking doesn’t end with them getting hit by a cab, and before he knows it, Clint is inside the studio. He’s never been inside, he has a thing with needles.

As soon as he comes inside, the woman behind the counter - red hair in a french braid, an ever so subtle sign of eyeliner and crayon around her eyes - begins talking to him and the girl who just came in. As he lets go of Lucky’s leash, Clint fumbles with the little box containing his aids, letting visually go of the explaining that the young woman is currently doing on his behalf. He plugs one hearing aid in and catches a “-couldn’t let him sit there all alone, now could I?” but decides to finish setting up his ears before he interjects with something funny.

“You’re dripping all over my carpet,” the woman behind the counter says, with a pointed look going to the dog. “Kate, we’re a tattoo studio, we’re supposed to be squeaky clean when it comes to hygiene and stuff.”

“Oh, don’t worry, he won’t bother-” is the very beginning of a sentence that Clint wishes he could’ve finished, but the moment he was going to end that phrase, Lucky decides that this is the best time and place to shake the water out of his fur.

“No, Lucky, no, you can’t-” Clint begins, but Lucky is done, his golden fur almost poofy, the windows, the carpets, Clint’s clothing and the young woman’s jeans even more ruined by what feels like a tidal wave of rainwater. “I am so. So. So sorry,” he manages, looking around, as the woman behind the counter simply lifts an eyebrow. “Do you have- eh, do you think- I mean, I could mop it up? I forgot the keys to the flower store, so I might as well clean up this mess here,” he says, passing a hand through his hair as he does so, realizing that it’s flat against his forehead. He’s absolutely soaked.

“I don’t think you need a mop, with how your clothes are soaked,” the redhead states flatly. For a second there, Clint can’t figure out if she’s joking or not, but something sparkles in her eye. “I’m Natasha, by the way, and your savior is Kate Bishop.”

Looking over at Kate, Clint nods, manages a struggled “Hi!”, before he realizes that he should say his name too, “Oh, oh, sorry, I’m Clint, Clint Barton. I’m the owner of Lily’s and Daisy’s across the street.” He motions to the other side of the street with his thumb, but ends up putting the hand down again. Of course they knew that. They’ve just established that Kate came from there with him in tow. 

Given that he’s apparently decided to stay standing there, the redhead - no, Natasha - sighs, folds and puts away the manila folder she’s been writing in, and walks around the counter to come closer to him, Kate taking it as a dismissal and going back to her work station on the other side of the room.

“You’re the owner of Lily’s and Daisy’s?” she asks, and Clint nods. “Then why wouldn’t you have the keys to your own store?”

“Well, uh, you see… I forgot the keys.” Lucky tugs at his leash to go inspect whatever Kate was doing, but Clint keeps a steady hand on him. “I slept at a friend’s place last night, and I forgot my keys in the jeans I wore yesterday, because they’re in the wash, and I mean, I usually don’t leave my keys in clothes when I have to wash them, but since there was blood on them I was like, maybe I should wash them, so when we got home from the ER, I just took them off and changed into something else, you know?” 

“I don’t know, no. You said there was blood on your jeans? Why?” Natasha asks, crossing her arms across her chest. She looks impressive - compact, the kind of woman who knows how to use her body weight and who knows that it’s not enough to just curl weights at the gym if she wants to be strong. Clint recognizes her build from some of the soldiers that share his unit. They’re built for strength and for efficiency, not pomp and circumstance like so many of the people in modern day gyms are.

He knows he looks sheepish, but he can’t help it. “Yeah, Frank, my friend Frank Castle, he got in a fight and-”

“Wait, Frank Castle? You know Frank- What was your name again?” she asks this time, frowning. Clint still hasn’t moved from the carpet he’s come into, and he still hasn’t dared move out of the little square feet he’s been attributed out of the rain yet, but Natasha’s body language just shifted in the slightest.

“Clint, Clint Barton. I was on Frank’s special team with the US Marines,” he explains, looking around. “I think- I think you know Steve Rogers too, right? He was in my squad too, well, was, he’s still active, but I got an honorary discharge because I got my eardrums blown out by an IED. Frank and Steve were the ones who made sure I came back in a chopper and not in a coffin.”

The moment the last sentence makes it past his lips, Clint knows he’s rambling and he’s pretty sure that a) Natasha and Kate don’t care about his military career and b) that wasn’t why she was asking about his name. So, he decides with the best response to that monologue he can possibly think of: “Sorry, got carried away there-”

“No, it’s okay. I just didn’t recognize you, you look like shit,” Natasha interrupts, taking a few steps forward, getting into Clint’s personal space. “Correction, you look like you thought you could apply foundation to hide a black eye but forgot it’s raining cats and dogs outside. That, and the hair that’s not in its usual gelled back wannabe mohawk,” she continues, looking over at Kate who just chuckled loud enough to catch Lucky’s attention again. 

“So, want to tell me why you were running with Frank’s crew last night?” she asks, taking a step back, before turning on her heels and going back behind the counter, where she stood when he came in.

Clint makes a face. “There was trouble with Reyes,” he says, rolling his eyes. “There was a fight, and you know, Frank’s the only one to be able to break up street fights, so…”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t tell me why you were there,” she says, this time looking at him directly. Clint feels himself tense up. It’s not like he’d intended to be there when Frank ended up throwing Rumlow off the pier with a punch, but. Well, he’d been with his former squad mates. Steve Rogers and Frank Castle had been the officers in charge, Clint and James “Bucky” Barnes had been snipers, although Clint progressed to their IED-specialist over time, and then there’d been Jessica Drew and Maria Hill too. All of them had been reunited one last time before some of them shipped out again. And when Frank had gotten the call that there had been a street race, that it had gone south when Reyes had won over Rumlow, and that there was now an ongoing brawl… Clint had wanted to go with the others to break it up. 

He sighs. Ever since he got sent home on an honorary discharge because of his injury, he’s been feeling like he wasn’t as much of a part of the squad as he used to be. It changed a little bit when Barnes got his arm blown off as well, but that happened two years after Clint had left, so even then, there had still been so much time he’d lost with them.

“I guess I just wanted in on the action, for once?” he replies, more or less shrugging, hoping it’ll be enough of an explanation. 

Natasha snorts, but eventually simply nods. “Alright, I’ll take that. Better go back to your store, looks like one of your kids is here with a key.” She cocks her head in direction of the store, Clint turning around as well. He nods when he recognizes Peter Parker, one of the students at the same University Kate Bishop is going to, except he’s majoring in Physics.

“Thanks for the dry spot,” he says finally, as he folds Lucky’s leash in his hands before turning back around and leaves the tattoo store.

“You owe me a cleaning,” Natasha manages to say, just loud enough that he catches it as he opens the door to the pouring rain again.

* * *

“So, you went into the tattoo store?” 

“Yeah, didn’t Clint say something along the lines of “over my dead body” last time we mentioned it?” Frank says, laughing at Steve’s question.

“You know, I know you went in there,” Steve continues, “Natasha told me you went in there.”

“Did you get more ink done? What are you going for, a blackout sleeve or something? You barely have any spots left on your upper body, and I remember you saying you weren’t going to get anything done to your legs and feet,” Clint counters, and Steve puts out his tongue, mockingly.

“She went in to freshen up some of the colors on the New York skyline I have on my back, it faded,” Steve answers, looking over at Frank who’s laughing.

“And how do you know that I went into the tattoo store?” Clint asks, directing the question at Frank this time.

Frank just laughs some more, taking a sip of the beer he’s been enjoying for the past twenty minutes, before he finally answers: “You do realize that Natasha being a former Olympic figure skater, she goes to the skating rink every now and then? I’m bound to bump into her when I’m training the little ones,” Frank says through a smile.

“The Punisher, former formidable hockey player extraordinaire, now training kids who can barely run how to stand on a fine metal blade on ice, that’s something I’m never going to get over,” Steve laughs, nudging at Frank’s shoulder with his fist. Clint laughs. 

“You could’ve said no to go in there, what with your thing with needles and all,” Frank continues after a second though, and looks over at Clint, who’s clutching his Coca-Cola bottle tightly. Lucky is snoozing under the table, eyes closed and relaxed - when Clint is with Steve and Frank, Lucky doesn’t have to be working as a service dog. It’s not only to help Clint navigate the world as a deaf person - he’s got hearing aids, he can more or less mouth read, and he knows sign language, so he’s got that covered. No, Lucky helps him with his PTSD.

And needles were a trigger for him, which was why he has never, ever set foot into the tattoo store opposite the street from his flower shop. Until now.

“I know,” Clint finally lets out, with a huff. “It’s just, Kate came all the way over, and as you know, I’d forgotten my keys at your place after we had to go knock out the street brawl, and well… I kind of forgot there were needles in the store, since neither of them had clients they were working on that day. So it didn’t,” he motions to his head in a circular motion, “set anything off.”

Frank and Steve share a look. “What does America say about it?”

Clint sighs. “America didn’t say a lot, she just came to check in on me, same way Sam comes to check on Bucky, and she says that it’s not something I need to investigate further. I mean, I still have issues getting into cars, I don’t think needles are the trigger we need to work on right now.”

A couple of seconds go by, as neither of them say anything. Lucky’s half snores break the silence, before Steve sighs, leaning forward, his dog tags falling out of his shirt. Clint knows he’s thinking of something to say to break the tension Clint has unwillingly created, and Clint knows that whatever Steve says, it’s going to be a cover for avoiding the topic of Clint’s own PTSD.

“How are the kids doing? Any of them getting into trouble at school?” Steve finally asks, and Clint makes a waving motion with his hand.

“Parker’s getting into all the scholarships he wants, he’s getting help from Keener, the kid who was interning at Stark’s? So that’s going well, he tries to explain the formulas to me, but I understand physics just fine-”

“Because you’re a sniper and an archer, we know Barton, we know,” Frank interrupts with a chuckle. “How’s your spelling? That literature major, what’s her name again?”

“Wanda?”

“Yeah, her. She helping you with that spelling of yours?” 

Clint turns his gaze to Frank and looks at him with what he hopes is an ice cold stare. “Hey, it’s called dyslexia, it’s not my fault I can’t spell for shit. I’m trying. She’s gotten me some books I can read when I have the time, turns out it’s not too bad when the text is written in a specific font,” he pulls out his phone as he’s speaking, “She installed an app that makes all the text easier for me to read. She says she spoke to one of her teachers and there’s apparently been studies done that some fonts with serifs are worse for people with dyslexia, so that’s neat.”

“So that’s why your spelling’s improved so much,” Steve teases kindly. 

“Nah, that’s just auto-correct getting better at machine learning,” Clint replies equally amused.

* * *

Clint likes binding bouquets. It’s soothing for him - he’d tried other things, but sometimes when he’s in a bad place mentally, his hands shake too much for more detailed work, and since he can’t spell, he wouldn’t have been able to get an office job.

The office of Veteran Affairs and America Chavez, who was the junior assigned to his case, had first tried to get him to intern in different shops and practices. He’d interned as a construction worker, but the tone between the colleagues had been too rough for him. Then he’d interned as a salesman in a grocery store, but as America had put it in her report, “Retail isn’t for people with PTSD”. He’d lasted three days on the front lines with customers until he’d asked to be taken off the internship.

(Management of the grocery store hadn’t understood why - he was a good match for their disability percentage, so why was he bailing now?)

(America had taken the talk with them).

Then he’d interned at a craft store, which was a much better fit, but he didn’t know anything about knitting, sewing or making things from scratch. Well, correction, he did know how to make things from scratch because he had learned to dismantle them, but maybe his knowledge of improvised explosive devices wasn’t going to serve him well when slightly older ladies came in asking for floral print fabric in 100% cotton.

Finally, America had suggested a flower shop. Clint had been adamant that he wasn’t going to be making flower bouquets for anyone, but after a week in the store which had agreed to the program, he was already feeling better. He didn’t have to worry about cutting himself when he cut the stems of the flowers as they had a machine that was automated and secured against soft flesh as materials to cut, so that was one thing. The store allowed service dogs in the back, so Lucky could be with him at all times. It was quiet, and Clint realized that the scent of the flowers actually helped him.

And, surprisingly, he was excellent at matching colors and memorizing which flowers went well with each other - both color wise, but also in how long they lasted before they started wilting.

So, he’d done that for a couple of months, and then there had been a meeting at the VA, where Clint had been absolutely sure that he was going to get booted, only to be told by America that the owners were planning on moving back to South Carolina to be closer to their first grandchild, and were considering leaving him the store.

It hadn’t been an easy week for him when he’d had to make the decision whether to accept - a couple of panic attacks, a night spent at the VA under observation because he’d wandered off in the middle of the night in a haze - but eventually, the paperwork had been put in motion for him to take the store over.

One of the conditions he’d put in was that he would need help to run the business. The former owners of the store had mentioned the tattoo shop on the other side of the street and their partnership with the University, and Clint had asked if they could implement that there too. Students would help him run the business, and he could bind flowers. He’d told them that he wasn’t interested in profits, he was already getting an army pension that could keep him sort of comfortable, so he’d instituted a flat, bottom pay for everyone. 

Peter Parker, Physics major, was helping him with ordering the flowers and setting them up in the fridges to keep them fresh, with the different acidities of the water they were stored in. Harley Keener, mathematics major, was helping him with the accounting, making sure that all the paperwork, insurances, bills and more got paid. Kamala Khan helped along with the accounting too, but also worked to find suppliers that were ethical, since she was majoring in the humanities in a major Clint couldn’t remember the name of. Then there was Wanda Maximoff, an international student from Sokovia who was majoring in literature, who helped him with the descriptions of the flowers, of the bouquets, helped him with writing the signs and sort of also helped him with social media, although he didn’t think that was necessary. There were a couple of others kids who helped him out, some covering the sales department by manning the front desk, and others who helped Clint with deliveries and express flower orders.

It was a nice business model, because all the kids were on actual contracts and were getting paid what their dues were worth - after having worked in the retail world, Clint understood too well how labor went unpaid because some managers only dreamt of personal profits. As long as he had something to do which could keep him out of his own mind, it was good. And it meant that he could support kids in getting an education, which was something he’d always hoped to get, but had been cut short by his learning disability. Which was why he’d joined the military in the first place.

* * *

“So, has he been back into the shop?”

Steve’s sitting in the chair again, arm stretched out from his body. Natasha is wearing a surgical mask - she always does - and latex gloves, holding the tattoo-machine in her one hand, and kitchen towel in the other. She’s using it to remove the excess ink whenever she’s done tattooing a little part of Steve’s arm. On the back of her hand, she’s got a little batch of vaseline - it helps things glide a little bit better.

She chuckles at his question. “No, he hasn’t. He waves every time he walks past, though,” she says, waiting for Steve to reply before she continues. The sound of the needle hitting his skin occupies the room for a bit.

“It’s because he can’t stand needles,” Steve explains. “He was- He was in my squad-”

“Yeah, he told me. You and your team got him out alive after he almost got blown to shreds by an IED, yeah?” 

She looks up from her work on the arm. The stencil she’s applied covers one of the few patches of skin on his lower bicep that hasn’t been covered in ink yet. It’s a star again, this time in purple color. Steve has a bunch of them, layered around in his tattoo sleeves and on his chest and back, he uses them to fill out the blanks that Natasha’s work hadn’t covered yet.

“He uh- yeah. He was in bad shape when he was evacuated. He’s got scars on his face still too, from the shrapnel. He was closest to the explosion when it happened, the air pressure blew out his eardrums, but he got- well, there was blood everywhere. He kept screaming, he’s the guy who never screams on the team, ever, but he screamed that day. We thought he was going to die, he looked like he was going to die.”

“But he didn’t,” Natasha says, before sitting back on her chair and looking at Steve. She touches her throat, where Steve knows there’s a long, thin scar. He hasn’t asked, it’s never been his place to ask.

“I have a thing for needles too,” she says. “It’s why I work with them, because they creep the shit out of me.” She cleans the needle in a little pot, standing on the side table, and picks up another little container of yellow color.

“You know I was an Olympic skater, right?” Steve nods. “And I’m sure you remember the news coverage there was when one of the Olympic couples had a horrible accident with a pair of skates, right?”

Steve’s eyes go to her throat, and he nods. “I never asked because I didn’t think it was my business,” he says.

“I appreciate it. But I could never skate again after that, the thought of-” her hand goes to her throat, “It just freaked me out. They offered me coaching positions, but by the time I had worked through those issues, I couldn’t watch others skate either. It was too hard. So, I ended up doing what would have been my prior career, if I hadn’t shown so much potential on the ice rink,” she laughs, nodding at what she’s currently doing on his bicep.

“Quite the fall, from Olympic Gold Medalist winner to tattoo artist,” he says.

“Well, when we’re up, there’s only one way to go, right? And, it’s not too bad. I get to watch that idiot with his stupid dog walk past my window shop every single day.”

“Have you talked to him since?” Steve asks, before lifting his hand. “Might need a break,” to what Natasha reacts by stopping tattooing him. Once the endorphins have begun, Steve is usually able to sit for longer periods than others, but even he needs a break. It is a little surgical procedure, after all.

“No, I haven’t talked to him really. I thought about going over there to ask if he wanted to make some floral compositions for the counter, but I’m not sure how to go about it,” she answers, pulling down the mask off her face and throwing it into a garbage can nearby. “Want something to drink?” she asks, as she gets up, Steve nodding a positive reply.

“He won’t bite, you know,” he jokes, as she leaves the room to go get some water for the both of them. 

“No, I know, but I might bite him,” she replies, loud enough that Steve laughs. He looks up at the ceiling. He’s known Natasha for a long time, and knows that her previous marriage ended in disaster. She used to be married to Ivan, her skating partner, but after her injury where his skate almost cut her head off, well… No amount of couple’s therapy is going to solve that.

She comes back into the room. “He’s got a dog, the dog will definitely bite first, I think,” Steve laughs, as she hands him a glass. He takes a sip, while they sit there. 

Kate’s head suddenly pops into the doorframe, before she comes in. She’s just finished with a client as well. “Natasha is nervous, because she has a crush on the US Army veteran and she doesn’t know how to do romance because her only former romantic partner was her childhood best friend and professional sports partner,” Kate interjects and Steve laughs.

“You realize Clint used to be married too, right? He married his childhood sweetheart, just like you, but when he came back from Iraq broken and in pieces, she couldn’t handle it. So, they divorced. It wasn’t too easy, Bobbi was a mean woman in the process and almost caused him more PTSD than he came back from the war with. She meant well, but, eh-” Steve waves his hand. “Not the best way to go about it.”

“See, Nat? Totally told you he’s within your league. You just gotta go ask him!” Kate laughs and Steve winks at her. “He’s also totally your type.”

“Nah, Steve’s more my type,” Natasha presses, punching his arm, “more muscle and all that.”

Steve laughs out loud at that. “Oh my god, what do you think he’s hiding underneath those hoodies he wears all the time?” He almost gets up to sit, but Natasha forces him to stay lying down so as to not move his arm too much. “He teaches archery. You know, you may be an Olympic skater, but before he joined the army, Clint was the youngest archer on the United States archery team ever. He pulls what-”

“80 pounds on his compound,” Kate corrects. “He’s the only instructor who has a bow that’s above the usual 70 pounds. You have never seen his arms?” Kate asks, incredulous.

Natasha shakes her head and hurries to put a surgical mask back on her face. Steve picks it up immediately, “Did you put that one just to hide that you’re blushing? Oh, God, Kate, she’s blushing!”

“Seriously, just go talk to him,” Kate finally says. “If you’re lucky, he’s in the back of the flower shop in a t-shirt, and you’ll get to see those arms of his.”

* * *

The bell above the door jingles, and Clint looks up at the mirror above him to see who just walked into the store. It’s Natasha. She hasn’t been inside his flower shop before.

His first immediate thought is  _ shit, my fingers are dirty _ and then he remembers that she works at a tattooshop and that it doesn’t matter. His second thought is that he’s wearing a purple, worn and used tank top because standing in the back of a flower shop is both extremely humid, and he’d rather not be wearing more clothes than he needs. There’s a little fan on the table next to him to keep him cool.

But, he’s not wearing anything to hide the scars on his arms. He doesn’t want her to see them. 

He watches her walk up to the counter and hit the little bell, but Clint knows that he’s the only one in right now. The kids went down to the coffee shop down the street for lunch, and technically, the flower shop is closed as well, he just hadn’t bothered to turn the “open” sign back to the “closed” sign. So, he resigns himself to walk out from the back and greet Natasha.

He takes a big breath as he walks out and plasters on a smile on his face. “I didn’t know you were into flowers,” he says as a way of greeting her. She laughs.

“Well, I’m not, but Kate keeps insisting on the fact that it’d look good to have some arrangements on the counter.”

Natasha doesn’t say that Kate said this over three weeks ago, and that it’s been over two months since Clint came into her store soaking wet. But it’s her best defense as to why she’s even here in the first place.

“I can do that, weekly delivery or bi-weekly delivery?” he says, pulling out the paper tray of the printer for a sheet, and picking up a pen. He knows that Kamala has arranged the paperwork neatly and that there’s a form somewhere in this building that should make it easy for Natasha to fill everything out herself, but… Clint hasn’t exactly figured out how it works. He hasn’t tried.

“I’m not sure, what would you suggest?” Natasha asks. Clint looks down at the paper a little bit too intensely, and doesn’t notice the fact that Natasha is eyeing his arms. They’re sweaty - again, humidity - and she’s counting the scars. There are some where she can see the stitches still, the scar tissue hasn’t discolored just yet. 

He finally looks up at her, and he doesn’t know what it is, maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s because he’s tired, maybe it’s just the way she’s standing, but he feels his heart flutter for a moment and catches himself thinking that she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen in the whole world. He shakes his head, as if the thought was a fly he had to get rid of and answers her.

“With your opening hours, I’d say bi-weekly, you get people in there all the time. One week, the flowers will look too sloppy after a while, especially if you forget to change their water.”

“I’m probably the type to forget to change the water,” she replies, with a shy smile. 

“Then bi-weekly it is.”

* * *

There’s a slight jingle as the bells above the door ring, and Natasha barely looks up from the work she’s currently doing on Sam. Steve had finally managed to get Sam to sit down for long enough to pick a tattoo he wanted - and Natasha had offered to do it for lesser than usual. She so rarely gets to work on dark skin with her extremely habile light tattoo work, that she prides herself in being affordable - one of her former customers was a Wakanda diplomat, T’Challa, who had heard of her work and wanted to have her do an honorary tattoo on him some months prior.

“Be right there, let me finish up,” she yells, as she hopes whoever it is won’t throw a hissy fit over the fact that they don’t get served immediately. 

The bells jingle again a couple of seconds after, and she looks up, only to catch Clint from the back, holding his hands over his ears, before running back across the street to his flower shop. Natasha frowns, wondering what it was about, but makes sure to finish Sam’s tattoo before she packs up and heads over to the flower shop.

She knocks, is greeted by Lucky’s barking, which immediately sets her off. Lucky never barks, except when Clint is in danger or if he’s having an attack. Which usually go hand in hand. She immediately lets herself in, dodges Lucky as the dog tries to tackle her, and immediately goes to the back room.

She can’t see Clint at first, but finds him sitting in a corner, his arms locked around his legs, his head bent forward, rocking back and forth. She can hear his distressed breathing and can see on his fingers that he’s not in a good place at all, so she looks around, trying to figure out what to do.

“Clint, it’s Natasha, I let myself in,” she says, looking around still. There’s a glass of water - would that help? Throwing it in Clint’s face? Would it be dangerous if he’s wearing hearing aids? The fan is unplugged, so she goes to it immediately, fiddles with the plug, eventually gets it started and sets it on the floor, so that it’s facing Clint. Hopefully it’ll cool him down.

“Can you talk?” she asks, quietly, as Lucky comes back around and nudges at Clint’s arm. Clint shakes his head, Lucky immediately forcing his head in between Clint’s arm and his chest, to look up at him and make sure that Clint is alright. Clint doesn’t react to it. Natasha can hear that he eventually begins a breathing exercise because his breathing gets labored but ends up being controlled instead. 

She finally sits down next to him. “Was it you who came into the shop?” she asks, looking at her hands. Her black nail polish is fading and flicking off, she needs to redo it. She doesn’t want to look at him, because she knows that he wouldn’t want her to stare at him.

He nods, still taking care to hold his breathing when he needs to and release when he needs to. 

“I’m sorry you’re going through this,” she begins, looking up at the ceiling. It’s mostly pipes and a white paint that’s also begun to peel due to the humidity. “I wish I could’ve known it was you, then I might have stopped the machine and-” she pauses, because he’s nudged at her. She can see the struggle he’s going through by the color his neck is, it’s red, he’s too hot, so she just stays silent instead.

Panic attacks, or whatever this is, aren’t good, so it’s better to let him work through it. Eventually, she notices he’s begun to stroke Lucky’s head ever so slightly with some fingers, and she sighs with relief. 

“I’m sorry you had to see me like this,” he finally manages to make out in a single breath, as he lifts his head up. He’s got red, puffy eyes from crying, that much she can see, and he looks distraught, like he’s seen a ghost. Instead of letting him speak, which seems to be a struggle, she takes it upon herself to work through it.

“Steve told me that you have a thing with needles,” she begins, and he almost makes enough of an effort to cut her off, but she puts his hand on his arm to let him know that he doesn’t need to interrupt her. “I understand totally, I do too,” to what he snorts, taking a deep breath, “I have a scar here,” she continues, pointing to her throat, which Clint looks at just from the side, “from where my former skating partner’s skate blade cut. I almost bleed out right then and there on the skating rink, it was horrible. I remember the emergency room and the blood transfusions and it hurt so damn much,” she says, before lifting her arm and pointing to the nook of her elbow.

“That’s why I haven’t gotten any tattoos here.” She pauses for a bit, allowing Clint to look again. “It’s where they put the IV and where the blood transfusion sat until they managed to stitch my throat back together again. I thought I was never going to talk again, but I guess I was wrong about that, right?”

She smiles at him, as Clint’s eyes flutter from her neck to her eyes to her mouth and back to the scar on her neck. 

“Why do you tattoo people, then?” he croaks, as he unfolds ever so slightly, relaxing his body. Lucky moves out of the way to lie his head in Clint’s lap. 

“Because, I guess, it allows me to work with what scares the crap out of me,” she wonders for a bit, also beginning to stroke Lucky’s back. “I think, it made me feel better about my fear, you know?”

Clint nods.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, and he shakes his head. “Do you want a glass of water?” He nods. She gets up from the ground, goes to pick up the glass she’d seen prior to sitting down and hands it to him. “Do you want to go and shake it off?” He shakes his head, so she sits back down next to him.

“So, here we are, two people scared shitless of needles, sitting in your back room.” A couple of seconds go by as she thinks of a way to distract him. “Want to tell me about the flowers?” she says, cocking her head in the direction of a bouquet he had apparently been working on earlier that day.

“It’s a baby shower bouquet,” he explains, sniffling and drying his snotty nose off on the back of his hand, which he then wipes on his jeans. 

“But it’s… purple?” Natasha frowns, as she speaks.

“Oh, it’s not that kind of gender reveal bouquet. It’s because the couple it’ll go to have had trouble getting kids, so it’s more of a “yay, you finally made it past the third trimester!” bouquet. They’re holding a party for the couple, and they like purple.”

“It’s a nice color,” Natasha adds, and looks over at him. Clint chuckles. He’s keen to wearing purple himself, and the colors in the logo of his flower shop is purple after all.

“What’s the weirdest occasion you’ve had to make a flower bouquet for?” she then asks, and almost instinctively feels her hand go for his. He doesn’t shove it away, but instead interlaces their fingers together, while he takes a deep breath.

He huffs. “I think- I think someone wanted me to make a flower bouquet for the inauguration of a new statue or something, but then it turned out that the statue was an art performance and was actually a person in disguise,” he says, finally, puzzled. “They didn’t like the fact that I put a bunch of roses in the bouquet and may have missed some of the thorns.”

Natasha bursts out laughing at that. “That is weird, absolutely weird.”

“What is the weirdest tattoo you’ve ever had to make?” he asks then, and she can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s calmed down ever so slightly.

She thinks for a little while before answering. “Well, if a design bothers me, for any given reason, I don’t do it. But I did tattoo a guy’s inner lip one time. It was when that diplomat came, remember? There was security in the street and everything.”

“Yeah, they came to check out the shop if it was any danger,” Clint remembers and nods.

“Well, the diplomat in question, T’Challa, he had a bodyguard who wanted a tattoo on his inner lip, so I did that. Didn’t ask what the letters I tattooed meant, because it was in Wakandan. It was very, very weird, though,” she finishes, looking up at his face.

He looks tired, and exhausted, but he looks better. At least the paleness has gone a little bit, and he’s back to his usual skin color. Lucky lifts his head, almost as if on cue, and goes to fetch a towel that Clint has lying on the cutting table, and drops it off in Clint’s lap. Natasha untangles their fingers and picks it up, wiping the sweat of his brow.

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah, thanks,” he answers, closing his eyes as she takes care of the sweat on his brow. “Appreciate it,” he mutters quietly, as he looks down at his hands, then at Natasha’s free hand.

It had been nice to hold hands. 

* * *

After that day, things shift a little bit in the way that Clint and Natasha are around each other. Kate notices it, and so does Peter, who mentions something to Clint off handedly one day.

“You should ask her out on a date, I’m sure she’d say yes,” he says, and Clint snorts from the back. Peter is working on ordering some more flowers for the store.

“Like hell she would, me? I mean, she’s already seen that I can’t walk into her store without having a panic attack, why would she date me?” Clint asks, and Peter turns around from behind the desk to look through the little opening there is in the wall to the back.

Clint is arranging a bridal bouquet, and it looks amazing. According to him anyway.

“Well, because you’re a caring person who takes care of your friends and makes them feel more like family than friends,” Peter says. “Besides, Kate says that she’s been trying to get Natasha to ask you out for a date as well and-”

“Wait, are you two trying to set us up?” Clint interrupts, looking up from the flowers on the table.

“Well, not just us - Harley, Kamala, Steve, Sam and a bunch of others, we’ve seen the way you guys look at each other, it’s only a matter of time before you two go mooch,” Peter continues, as he makes a motion of his two hands coming together. Clint gets the message and frowns, both amused and a little bit distressed.

“Really?”

He wouldn’t put it behind Steve to do just that, trying to set him up, but to know that Natasha was also interested… “What did Natasha say to Kate about it?”

“What, you two dating?”

“No, the color of the curtains for the store! Of course, about us two dating you idiot,” Clint jokes, with a smile plastered on his face, and Peter can tell that Clint is entertaining the idea as well. 

“Well, apparently Natasha wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, but she’s not sure that YOU are interested in it, apparently she said you were busy with the store and everything else,” Peter concludes and Clint snorts.

“I am absolutely not too busy, and I’ll prove it to you right this second.”

Putting down the flowers that he’s carrying in his hand, Clint moves out from the back of the store, crosses the road - only narrowly avoiding an oncoming car - and heads over to the tattoo shop. Peter hears Lucky scrambling to his feet from where he’s been lying, but the door has already smacked. 

“Sorry buddy, you’re sitting this one out,” Peter says, as he watches Clint motioning through the window to Natasha, in the hopes of getting her attention. It takes a little minute, but eventually the door to the tattoo store opens up, revealing Natasha’s face who looks surprised.

They talk for a bit, in which Peter regrets not having popcorn, until finally Natasha nods to something Clint has said, looks at her watch, kisses him on the cheek and goes back inside. Although Peter is pretty sure that Clint knows he’s watching him, Clint still does a fist pumping motion before turning around and coming back into the store.

“Soooooo… She said yes?” Peter asks, as Clint is almost assaulted by Lucky jumping towards him, and Clint nods.

“Tonight at nine.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you liked reading it. Title is from "Bullet" by Hollywood Undead, which means I'm continuing the tradition of naming my fics after Hollywood Undead lyrics.
> 
> Let me know your favorite part of the fic in a comment or find me on [tumblr](https://spectralarchers.tumblr.com/) ♥


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